Indiana Pacers

Up: 2026-27 Fantasy Basketball Encyclopedia

Related: 2026-27 fantasy basketball projection methodology · 2026-27 fantasy basketball evidence and confidence policy · 2026-27 NBA minutes projections · 2026-27 NBA team outcomes

Information cutoff: 2026-07-18, America/New_York. This is an independent offseason projection, not an official depth chart or medical clearance.

Executive fantasy read

• Best category asset: Tyrese Haliburton. The projection keeps his rare assist-to-turnover and three-point profile but prices the first season after right-Achilles repair at 66 games and 32 minutes, below the aggressive public top-five/top-ten ranks.
• Safest middle-round profiles: Pascal Siakam for balanced volume and Ivica Zubac for rebounds, FG% and a block. Haliburton's return should lower Siakam's creation burden while improving both veterans' shot quality.
• Most important draft discount: Jay Huff loses the starting job to Zubac, but the Potter waiver leaves him the only true backup five, and 153 blocks in 2025-26 make him an unusually potent specialist at 14 base minutes — more so whenever the center split expands.
• Best dynasty development bet: Jarace Walker. His post-January shooting and playmaking growth were real, but Haliburton, Siakam, Nesmith and Oubre now reclaim much of the opportunity that produced it.
• Likeliest waiver value: T.J. McConnell, Kelly Oubre Jr., Huff and Walker become streamable whenever one starter sits. Johnny Furphy is an injured-list dynasty stash after a February right-ACL tear, not a normal opening-night reserve.

Roster ledger

The official June draft profile listed 13 players under contract before Indiana traded Kam Jones for Braden Smith's draft rights. The July additions of Oubre and Nance, the confirmed Kobe Brown two-way, and the retained 2026-27 two-way contracts for Thompson and Peter produce the boundary below. Braden is reported for a two-way deal, but the three slots are already occupied; a waiver or conversion is required before that report becomes an official contract. Sources: NBA Pacers draft profile, accessed 2026-07-18, official Oubre signing, official Nance/Brown/Potter transactions, NBA transaction log, Forbes on Smith's reported two-way.

Outgoing in the Zubac trade (2026-02-05/06): Indiana sent Bennedict Mathurin, Isaiah Jackson, its 2026 first-round pick (protected 1-4 and 10-30; it conveyed at No. 5), an unprotected 2029 first-round pick and a 2028 second-round pick to the Clippers for Zubac and Kobe Brown. Mathurin was averaging 17.8 points, 5.4 rebounds and 2.3 assists on 43% shooting with 24 starts in 28 pre-trade games. That is the roster's largest single subtraction and it is priced explicitly in Projection logic below. ESPN trade report · NBA Zubac trade report

Also outgoing this offseason: Micah Potter was waived 2026-07-08 to clear first-apron room for Nance and was claimed by Portland on 2026-07-10. That removed Indiana's third center; the center room is now Zubac, Huff, and two undersized forwards. Hoops Rumors on the waiver

Outside the projection: restricted free agent Jalen Slawson played Summer League but had no confirmed 2026-27 contract by the cutoff. Indiana has one standard slot open; Smith, Peter, or a later veteran could fill it. Guaranteeing Jackson on 2026-07-15 rather than waiving him kept roughly $2.3M on the books and is why Indiana sits close to the first apron with that single slot.

Projected depth chart

Base starting five: Haliburton — Nembhard — Nesmith — Siakam — Zubac. That is an inference, not a declaration. NBA's Zubac trade report identified those five as the returning core; Oubre's scoring and steals give Rick Carlisle a credible sixth-man or starting-wing alternative. NBA Zubac trade report · NBA Oubre analysis

Exact 240-minute competitive-game model

This is one simultaneous, regulation-only healthy-night allocation. It excludes overtime and non-simultaneous injury-path minutes. Furphy is outside the base because his ACL return date and early workload are unresolved.

Correction 2026-07-18: Huff's base center minutes were raised from 8 to 14 and Toppin's from-the-five minutes cut from 9 to 3 (Toppin's total falls 16 to 10; the six freed minutes go to Huff, keeping the column at 48 and the map at 240). The prior split put a 6'11" center who started 47 games and finished second in the NBA with 153 blocks behind a 6'9" forward, which no published rotation projection supports; the Potter waiver on 2026-07-08 also removed the third center outright, leaving Huff as the only true backup five. Pacers projected rotation · Hoops Rumors on the Potter waiver

Jackson and the two-way/draft-rights group have zero simultaneous base minutes. Their active-game MPG projections below describe the smaller set of games in which injuries, rest, or development place them in the rotation; those minutes are not added to this 240-minute map.

Base 9-cat per-game projections

These are encyclopedia projections, not copied consensus. MPG is expected minutes in games played; deep reserves' numbers therefore describe call-up or injury-path games. Percentages are projected on each player's own volume.

Projection logic and category hierarchy

Indiana's 2025-26 19-63 season is a distorted baseline: Haliburton missed all 82 games, the club used 48 starting lineups, and multiple regulars lost long stretches. The healthy roster should retain the eighth-ranked 2025-26 pace (101.0), but Haliburton's first-year workload and Zubac's slower half-court profile argue against simply restoring the 2024-25 fantasy rates. Basketball Reference 2025-26 team page · Axios on 48 lineups and Haliburton's April 5-on-5

1. Haliburton's efficiency is the engine. His 2024-25 line was 18.6 points, 9.2 assists, 3.0 threes, 1.4 steals and only 1.6 turnovers. The model discounts minutes and threes slightly, not the underlying passing identity. NBA Fantasy Focus
2. Siakam's 2025-26 usage does not fully survive. He produced 24.0/6.6/3.8 without Haliburton; the projection returns scoring toward his 20.2-point 2024-25 season while preserving the healthier shot diet Haliburton creates. ESPN Pacers stats
3. Zubac is a category anchor, not a stretch-five fit. He averaged 14.1/10.6/2.2 in 48 games, but an ankle sprain and later rib fracture limited the Indiana sample to five games. The projection splits the difference between his 2024-25 career year and 2025-26 availability. Pacers Zubac review
4. A wing usage vacuum sits underneath the crowding. The February trade sent out Mathurin's 17.8 points on 24 starts in 28 games, and Isaiah Jackson with him. Indiana replaced that volume with Oubre on the roughly $8.25M-per-year mid-level and nothing else; no other shot-taker was added. Roughly 18 points and a starter's worth of on-ball wing possessions left the building and have not been reassigned on paper. Haliburton's return absorbs a large share of it, and Siakam is already priced near his ceiling, so the residual flows to Oubre, Nesmith and Walker.
5. The wings still cannibalize each other, but from a higher floor. Oubre's 1.4 steals, Walker's post-January growth, Nesmith's 37.9% three-point shooting and Sheppard's defense are all useful, and four players are chasing roughly 73 wing minutes. The crowding is real; what the earlier version of this desk got wrong was computing it against a roster that still had Mathurin in it. Oubre at 25 minutes and Walker at 22 are retained as the base, but both are held deliberately at the conservative end of a distribution whose upside tail is wider than the minute map implies — Oubre in particular is the most likely player here to beat his projection outright.
6. Huff has the best per-minute specialist path, and now the role to use it. He played all 82 games, started 47 and finished second in the NBA with 153 blocks. With Potter waived he is the only true backup center, and 14 base minutes make him a live category-league asset rather than a pure contingency; 18-22 in a Zubac absence makes him a must-add. Pacers Huff review

Correction 2026-07-18: this section previously argued wing crowding without ever naming what the Zubac trade cost. The outgoing package (Mathurin, Isaiah Jackson, the 2026 first that conveyed at No. 5, an unprotected 2029 first, a 2028 second) is now stated in the Roster ledger and its usage consequence priced in item 4. Item 6 was revised upward with Huff's minutes. ESPN trade report

Public ranking and market disagreement

The July 18 Hashtag crowdsourced list had Haliburton 10th, Siakam 44th, Zubac 61st, Toppin 129th, Oubre 169th, Walker 191st, Nembhard 215th, Huff 225th, McConnell 230th, Nesmith 271st, Furphy 318th, Sheppard 319th and Brown 435th. Its affiliations were materially stale—Zubac still showed LAC, Huff MEM, Oubre PHI and Nance ATL—so it is useful only as a market-sentiment snapshot, not a roster source. Hashtag crowdsourced rankings, updated 2026-07-18

Hashtag's dynasty list was more coherent at Haliburton 13, Siakam 59, Zubac 60 and Walker 184. An SI way-too-early list put Haliburton fifth overall, while an April Reddit ADP exercise placed him eighth. The encyclopedia's 12-28 per-game band is deliberately less aggressive because neither public list converts Achilles uncertainty into a transparent games-and-minutes assumption. Hashtag dynasty rankings · SI early top 50 · community early ADP thread

Team outcome range

Andrew's July 17 RAPM prior is substantially lower: 35.3 wins, a 29-42 P10-P90 band, 14.4% playoff probability and -6.04 projected strength. This desk retains that prior rather than silently averaging it away, but moves the qualitative base higher because the July NBA roster surface described Haliburton as participating in 5-on-5 since April without an apparent restriction. The gap should close only after camp workload and shared Haliburton-Zubac possessions exist. local model note · NBA Pacers team surface

Main uncertainty and reversal signals

• Haliburton ramp: any official back-to-back restriction, camp limitation or preseason cap below 28 minutes moves GP toward 58-62 and the rank outside the top 25. Full camp plus consecutive 32-minute preseason games moves him toward 70 GP and the late first round.
• Oubre/Nesmith/Walker order: Oubre starting would likely cost Nesmith and Walker 2-4 minutes each. A fixed sixth-man role with second-unit usage makes Oubre the better redraft bet without changing the starter labels.
• Center split: with Potter gone, Zubac at 28 minutes instead of 30 pushes Huff toward 16-18 and a standard-league blocks specialist; Zubac at 32 plus heavier Toppin small-ball minutes pulls Huff back toward 10. The desk also projects Zubac for only 66 games, so roughly 16 nights carry no starting center at all — on those, Huff is the near-automatic beneficiary at 24-28 minutes.
• Furphy timeline: a pre-January return is not assumed. Full-contact clearance before camp would raise GP; any setback makes the 28-game estimate too high.
• Final contracts: Braden Smith cannot sign the reported two-way unless Indiana waives or converts Peter, Thompson or Brown. Jalen Slawson and the open standard slot remain live branches.

News, social, and video trail

• Official news/transactions: Zubac trade, Oubre signing, Nance/Brown/Potter moves, Braden Smith draft-rights trade, 2026 Summer League roster.
• Official/statistical baselines: NBA Pacers roster/staff, Basketball Reference 2025-26 Pacers, NBA Oubre 2025-26 stats, Pacers player-review series.
• Social records: the Pacers' July 8 Oubre signing post and February 6 Zubac welcome post establish team announcements; Shams Charania's Zubac terms post is treated as reporting, not the official transaction record.
• Video/scouting index: Haliburton back-on-court feature/interview, Braden Smith and 2026 Summer League clips/live blog, Quenton Jackson news and video hub, and Johnny Furphy news and video hub. Film supplies role and movement context only; it does not set statistical rates.
• Community hypotheses: an April healthy-core thread consistently identified Haliburton-Nembhard-Nesmith-Siakam-Zubac as the opening five, while a July roster thread flagged the unresolved two-way squeeze. These are sentiment/mechanism leads, not evidence of Carlisle's decisions. healthy-core discussion · two-way roster discussion

Open questions

• Does Haliburton enter camp with an explicit games or back-to-back plan?
• Does Carlisle start Oubre, use him as the sixth man, or close with him over Nesmith or Walker?
• Can Haliburton-Zubac pick-and-roll chemistry offset the loss of five-out spacing?
• Does the staff run Huff nearer 18 minutes as the only backup five, or claw minutes back with Toppin and Nance at the position?
• How much of Mathurin's departed on-ball usage actually reaches Oubre rather than being absorbed by Haliburton and Siakam?
• When is Furphy cleared for contact, and will the first month after return include a formal cap?
• Which current two-way player is waived or converted if Braden Smith's reported agreement becomes official?